| During the 1980's, both the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency plan to repeatedly launch imaging radar systems on the Space Shuttle. As a result, there is pressing need for ongoing studies of radar interaction mechanisms and the resulting image signatures.; This research was based on four radar mosaics of metropolitan Los Angeles, CA, acquired in 1979 and made available by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Both the X-Band and L-Band mosaic pairs (1) were aircraft synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data, (2) have a horizontal transmission polarization, (3) have both horizontal and vertical recorded polarizations, and (4) have a nominal due-North look direction. Three field sites were selected for intensive study. The primary research objectives were to (1) broaden and improve the theory of L-Band cross-polarizing interaction mechanisms and (2) determine optimum digital and photographic processes for simultaneous analysis of multiple images.; Nine case studies of bright L-HV signatures demonstrate that chain link fences are efficient L-Band depolarizing reflectors that can be used as a tool to investigate L-Band vegetation penetration capability in an urban environment. It was found that the vegetation penetration capability of this L-Band system at these field sites is minimal.; For each field site, Level III land use/cover maps were prepared that, together with six case studies of anomalous bright X-Band and L-Band signatures, demonstrate that diffraction can be an efficient depolarizing mechanism for both X-Band and L-Band wavelengths. Also, because of the strong electromagnetic interactivity of trihedral corner reflectors with metal walls, imaging radar systems can discriminate conducting from dielectric materials in non-cardinally oriented urban areas.; For the Glendale field site, digital contrast stretch and ratio images were prepared and then analysed singly and in combination to determine an efficient means of extracting information from multi-band, multi-polarization SAR image sets. Monochromatic ratio images were a very useful means of comparing two images simultaneously. Tri-color composites of both raw and ratio images also proved very useful, with optimum results obtained when printing the best image in green, the second-best red, and the third-best in blue. |
